Ebby

Annnnd TIME! About 1 hour.

95% interface and widgets swapped over to lawnchair!

Boom!

I used to use lawnchair. Good reason to switch back.

Yeah. Totally correct. That one slipped by.

Ahh sonofabitch! It’s already updated for me and there is no changelog. Turned off auto update.

Edit: and uninstalled. Lawnchair FTW.

It used to be a driver could present a cashier’s check as proof of financial responsibility, but it was a pretty high sum. There is a similar system with some states where you can purchase a bond that satisfies the insurance requirements. It is quite unpopular though and presents a host of other problems and liabilities.

Ehh?? How would that app know about the data the store potentially collects?

The app database and store database are separate, both containing duplicate data on the receipt or any affiliate data sharing that can facilitate de-anomyzation.

What? No one is doing that. Why would they? What if you have bluetooth disabled all the time like me because you don’t have any Bluetooth accessories, or to save power, or because Bluetooth is insecure.

A lot of retail -even my doctor office - do use this and have for a while.

BLE customer monitoring is certainly a thing. Here is an article from 2014: https://www.retail-innovation.com/carrefour-track-customer-journey-around-store-using-ble/

Here is a more modern ad-riddled writeup. https://www.encstore.com/blog/5162-a-step-by-step-guide-to-using-ble-beacons-in-retail

There is even a data broker claiming it records and updates your advertising profile before you get to the register. I wish I bookmarked that page when I read it years ago.

Disabling Bluetooth, I suspect, would stop tracking. Note some modern phones still respond to Bluetooth and tracking when powered off, such as the Pixel, unless Bluetooth is disabled before shutdown.

??? The camera is just to check on the customers if they are scanning everything properly and not stealing. A human is reviewing the footage.

Basic cameras can do that, but companies like Walmart and Home Depot have more advanced systems. Walmart profiles customers and can identify and alert staff/police to repeat problem customers. Home Depot has a class action case claiming it uses face detection technology. Heck, my cheap-ola off-the-shelf home security camera can track people and license plates straight out of the box. The Flock cameras tracking people and vehicles all over the cities use an OS released in 2017. This tech is prevalent now.

Many stores have installed Bluetooth beacon tracking that will monitor all customers cell phones (or other Bluetooth devices) precise location throughout the store.

The items on the receipt can work as a “checksum” for a specific pattern around that time of day.

Self checkouts also have cameras that can identify biometrics, repeat shoppers, and other data points for a profile. But it’s not known is the customer used one of those kiosks.

Smart move 👍

Congratulations, you’re in a new database.

I imagine it has a unique code (last digits of CC#) location and timestamp, and valuable purchase information advertisers are salivating over to profile you; and yes, I mean you, not your cousin. The only cash your cousin will see is just enough scraps to trigger feel-good responses so this can happen again.

Edit: if the receipt is indeed yours…

I had an Ubuntu system ate itself Christmas Eve at 1am. I think an update pooched some folder permissions and wiped the firewall settings.

It started with “Huh, the network drives won’t mount”, progressed to containers failing to start with “hardware not found” GPU-related errors -oh yeah, I still have to check that and make sure it is working- and yadda yadda… 13 hours later I got services back up and running.

Oof, today I slept in until 10. Ahhhhh…

Man, I wanted my Zoraxy migration to go smoothly, but it’s been stubborn as hell for me. 80% of my services transfered well, but a couple docker containers don’t like it and never got letsencrypt wildcard dns up and running; always an error. Still working on that in my spare time.

Mine was a live CD of Ubuntu about 3 years ago. It was an older computer and the front USB ports weren’t plugged in so no USB drive.

… but they all turned out like shit

Well punned good sir

Oh no! A struggling utility! I wonder where excess money is flowing? What could possibly fund these upgrades? -[insert generalized doom & gloom] -

https://energyandpolicy.org/as-customers-struggled-utility-ceos-pay-spiked-last-year/

We burned a lot of midnight oil on that company. It was a early data analytics type venture that was fun, but had a lot of long nights. We had an ethical spin from the ground up which, in hindsight, is not really the direction the Internet wanted to take.

It was a great bunch of folks though. We keep in touch now and then.

Haha! Yeah we sure did.

It was a small startup in, gosh, 1999-2000 when the net was a new frontier. Lessons were learned. It’s since been acquired and folded into other businesses. The domain is still in my name with a very basic static page.

We had no intention of making/hosting a website with the trademark. The company was in agreement.

After we got it, the bossman comes to me and says “so we can make this email addresses now, right?”

Like, duuude… It’s not his expertise, I know, but he thought web pages and email was totally separate systems.

Anyway, that was almost 25 years ago. All water under the bridge.

That’s kinda how cybersquatting laws work.

Someone registered an available domain hours after I searched for it when I received our trademark. The domain was immediately put up for sale. I spent almost a year getting my ducks in a row to sue and reclaim the domain (I even had screenshots of the availability. The scammer was watching registration queries) but they let the domain expire for lack of interest. I scooped it up after that.

I logged unique broadcasting Bluetooth devices for fun for a few months and I was amazed at how many hundreds if not thousands of devices it found.

And that logger was stationary. Unless you know and filter the Bluetooth address ranges of what you are looking for, you will be swamped with irrelevant data.

Side note: those Bluetooth beacons tracking people in stores are absolutely gobbling data.

Nothing wrong if you have the drivers, but if you find yourself in a pinch, they aren’t prevalent like Philips or standard screwdrivers. A socket set is part of our emergency kit now.